The International Lawrence Durrell Society The Herald Editors: Peter Baldwin Volume 43; April 2020 [NS-4] Steve Moore Founding Editor: Susan MacNiven Michael Haag 1943 - 2020 In Memoriam: Michael Haag The Herald editorial page 2 Peter Baldwin Michael Haag obituary page 3 Mark Ellingham Michael Haag and Lawrence Durrell page 5 Peter Baldwin Remembering Michael Haag page 7 Charles Sligh with Isaac Sligh Michael Haag: The Man in Love with a City . .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. page 9 Ian MacNiven Lawrence Durrell: A Life Abroad page 11 Michael Haag A Brief Reader’s Guide to Michael Haag’s Books . .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. page 15 Peter Baldwin Notice of OMG XXI Cancellation . .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. page 16 * The above photo of Michael was taken by his brother, Anton, on the island of Faial, in the Azores, in 2014. All photos in this edition of The Herald, unless otherwise attributed, are property of the estate of Michael Haag. 1 The Herald Editorial: In Memory and Celebration of Michael Haag I think that most of our readers will have heard about the untimely death of Michael Haag last January It took but an instant to decide, as editors, that this edition of The Herald should be put over entirely to our memories and celebrations of Michael and his work, particularly as editor, friend and would-be biographer of Lawrence Durrell I first met Michael to speak to one to one at his home in north London in 2006 My own copy of his major work, Alexandria: City of Memory, published by Yale University Press in 2004, was rather too bulky to carry on the long-ish train journey from my home to his, so I asked him to sign a card for me to slip into my copy of the book and I include in this editorial a scan of that inscription – a great personal treasure In this edition of The Herald, we have photos of Michael kindly provided by his family We are most grateful to Michael’s family for their support for this edition of The Herald Anton, Michael’s brother and executor, has kindly given permission for us to reprint Michael’s obituary of Larry; this first appeared in our academic sibling publication Deus Loci Our thanks to Anna Lilios, editor of Deus Loci, for her permission to republish that obituary Anna is planning to remember Michael’s work in a forthcoming edition of Deus Loci which will include Michael’s essay ‘The Mystery of Karm Abu Girg’ We have, of course, focused on Michael’s work about Lawrence Durrell in this edition of The Herald with an obituary written by Mark Ellingham, Michael’s publisher at Profile Books, with reminiscences by Ian MacNiven and Charles Sligh as well as a transcript of the short eulogy I gave at Michael’s funeral Michael’s family assure me that, in the fullness of time, they will keep us informed about Michael’s archive, which includes his note books of material he collected for the biography of Durrell he had been commissioned to write for Yale University Press We know this material will be of interest to Durrell scholars and students so we will keep you posted on how to access that archive which we hope will be open to serious students of Durrell’s life and works Finally, we hope that Michael’s blog will remain online – a fascinating trove of material about Durrell and many of Michael’s other interests: http://michaelhaag blogspot com/ Peter Baldwin 31 March 2020 2 MICHAEL HAAG Born New York 1943, died London 2020 Mark Ellingham was Michael Haag’s publisher at Profile Books and before that at Rough Guides. Mark gave the eulogy at Michael’s funeral on 22 January 2020. Mark has written this obituary for this edition of The Herald © Mark Ellingham Michael Haag was an expert on what used to be called the Levant He wrote books on literary Alexandria, the Durrells, the Templars, Egypt and Greece On the day of his death, he was at work on his magnum opus for Yale, a life of Lawrence Durrell, which alas will remain unfinished Born in New York, Michael was introduced to the arcane subjects that he loved by a schoolfriend, Sterling Morrison (one of the founders of the Velvet Underground) insisting he read Robert Graves’s White Goddess He moved to London shortly after, Michael Haag presenting during the 2012 On where he lived for the rest of his life, interspersed Miracle Ground conference in London by lengthy stays in Greece and Egypt, and travels in Photo © Peter Baldwin Syria, Turkey and Lebanon Michael’s first books were travel guides – superbly written ones – on Greece and Egypt, which he published under the Travelaid imprint in the early-1980s He reinvented the art of travel guides as good reads Indeed, you could read passages of his guides and compare them with the best of Patrick Leigh Fermor The guides led to Michael pioneering the republishing of classic travel literature He brought back into print books by Dilys Powell, T E Lawrence, E M Forster, Flaubert and (his own favourite) Libyan Sands by Ralph Bagnold – about a bunch of madcaps driving Model T-Fords around the Western Desert who later became scions of the SAS This publishing business, however, failed due to the first Gulf War, which left Michael with a warehouse of guides to Egypt, Syria and the Lebanon – and no travellers to buy them The benefit was that Michael turned full time to writing and over the next decade produced a book that will long survive him This was Alexandria: City of Memory, a wonderfully rich, evocative study of the literary world of E M Forster, Constantine Cavafy and Lawrence Durrell, published by Yale For the past twenty or so years, Michael managed that rare feat of supporting himself entirely from his writing – and as his editor, first at Rough Guides and then at Profile Books, I had the privilege and pleasure of working with him on a somewhat oddball succession of books Our projects began with books that Michael could write almost from memory: a short history of Egypt and a book on Tutankhamun (to tie in with the new London exhibition), and then a guide to Dan Brown’s Da Vinci Code Michael wrote the latter in a fortnight, mostly at night (his standard working practice), drawing on a lifetime of knowledge that encompassed everything from the Templars to the Holy Grail His book was at least as interesting as Dan Brown’s novel and sold 160,000 copies 3 Michael continued research for his Lawrence Durrell biography, while writing hugely engaging books for Profile on the Templars (a backlist staple selling more than 100,000 copies) and Mary Magdalene But our most enjoyable project was his last, short book, The Durrells of Corfu (2017) When ITV created a series based on Gerald Durrell’s My Family and Other Animals, it was impossible to resist asking Michael to write about what had really gone on there He did so superbly, drawing on his old Durrell contacts (he had known Larry and Gerry, and Margo’s family), and produced another bestseller, published in multiple languages, including, to Michael’s great pleasure, Greek Michael is survived by his children, Veronica and Philip, and stepson Anton, and by his ex-wives Jane and Loutfia Mark Ellingham (with thanks to Neville Lewis) Michael with his mother, Maureen, in 2003 Michael with his daughter, Veronica, in 2010 Michael at his desk in 1993, proofreading Alexandria, later published as Alexandria Illustrated 4 Michael Haag and Lawrence Durrell Peter Baldwin, one of the co-editors of The Herald, was invited to give a brief eulogy of Michael Haag at his funeral on 22 January 2020. Here is what Peter said: My name is Peter Baldwin I am a retired solicitor [attorney] and have been an enthusiast for the work of the novelist and poet Lawrence Durrell for over 40 years Michael’s family have kindly allowed me to say these few words to recognise Michael’s singular and outstanding work about Larry, as he is often known I had the pleasure of meeting with Durrell on several occasions in the late 1980’s and lost a friend when Larry died in 1990 Whilst I speak today primarily as a friend of both Michael and Larry, I also speak on behalf of the International Lawrence Durrell Society, of which I am a Board member, in expressing our sadness at Michael’s passing Michael’s engagement and support for Larry and his work first came to my attention in Michael’s own publication in 1982 of a revised edition of E M Forster’s classic account of Alexandria: Alexandria - A History and a Guide with a specially written new introduction by Durrell While Larry explored Alexandria in 1941 using Forster’s Guide as his own guidebook, Michael used Larry’s novel Justine, the first of The Alexandria Quartet, as his own guide for his own first visit to Alexandria in 1973 In 1988, under his own imprint with that of Faber and Faber, Michael published a much expanded version of the correspondence between Durrell and Henry Miller – over 500 pages, ably edited by Durrell’s official biographer, Ian MacNiven In 2017 came The Durrell’s of Corfu which, to quote the book’s front cover, is ‘[the] real life story of the Durrell family… in pre-war Corfu, England and India ’ I have not forgotten the book Alexandria – City of Memory which came in 2004 and is widely seen as Michael’s masterpiece, universally acknowledged as a major source book of the biographies of Alexandrian poet Cavafy, E M Forster and Lawrence Durrell Indeed, Yale University Press, the publishers of that book, had commissioned Michael to write a new biography of Durrell Alas, I understand that this biography was unfinished at the time of Michael’s death so we lose both a respected enthusiast as well